WATCH: Huntsville, Madison County officials speak about area’s coronavirus outbreak

WATCH: Huntsville, Madison County officials speak about area’s coronavirus outbreak

>>> we interrupt regular programming right now with breaking news out of madison county.

>> our top leaders are giving their -- getting ready to deliver their daily update.

Let's go ahead and listen in.

>> we bring you this daily briefing on our community response to covid-19.

Our speakers today will be dr. karen landers from the alabama department of public health, mayor paul finley, city of madison, and david jernigan, police chief, city of madison.

You will note that we are sitting six feet apard according to cdc guidelines as well as our own best practices of separate and sanitize.

At this point i'll give you what we know currently.

Right now there are 1352 confirmed cases statewide.

117 of those are credited to madison county with still a result of one death.

Again, we continue to monitor that and respond accordingly.

At this pointed like to turn it over to dr. karen landers from the department of public health for her comments.

>> dr. landers: again, thank you, jeff.

Thank you to huntsville/madison county for inviting me to be here today.

As we county to battle covid-19 it is certainly extremely important to recognize that all of russ in this together and that the reminder to stay apart in order to stay together is an extremely vital message.

Just this week one of our laboratory workers in the bureau of clinical laboratories who was not working in the covid department tested post tive for covid-19.

We did not release other information other than this was one of our bcl employees but this was very close to us and personal because this is our alabama department of public health family.

So certainly we want to acknowledge that this virus is having impact on everyone.

I want to talk for a moment about what's going on with the alabama department of public health issue -- i'm or pi'm sorry, as you know, our response continues to be to coordinate public health activities throughout the state of alabama, which includes communication regarding our public health activities.

Also includes ensure that we have adequate specimen collection facilities in various counties, that we coordinate with hospitals with emergency preparedness and with the local responders in terms of making sure that any requests or needs for ppe or additional supplies are attempted to be filled and attempted to be noted through various capacities.

I think it's extremely important to be aware that as we have moved forward that we have refined our data and later on today we do expect to have additional data out regarding our hospitalizations in the state of alabama, our hospital rates in the state of alabama, and some other demographics.

I do want to report that preliminarily our hospitalization rate in alabama is about 15%, which is not really unusual compared to when you look at national data and overall data indicating that in a covid outbreak, at least somewhere in the range of 20% of people require hospitalization.

We do expect to release more data today related to demographics, in addition to updating our dashboard, alabama public health.gov.

So please visit our dashboard for additional numbers.

As we move forward in this, over the next few weeks, it will be extremely important for the public to continue to follow our state health officers' orders and directives and these may change.

We need to be prepared for the potential for change.

But let's follow these directives now in order to do all we can to reduce the morbidity and mortality of this virus.

Thank you.

>> jeff birdwell: thank you, dr. now we'll go to mayor paul finley, city of madison.

>> mayor finley: all right.

On behalf of mayor tommy battle and the huntsville city council, chairman dale strong and the madison county commission and our madison city council i want to first again thank jeff and the ema team, dr. landers and adph team and health care professionals.

As we continue to make decisions for this community, they are who we lean on for the expertise that is needed, they're invaluable and they help us in specific situations and generic situations and we thank you guys for all that you're doing.

I thought i'd address a couple of number one questions that we've been receiving.

At city hall the number one question is not necessarily a question to sharing of information.

They'll call and ask, you know, should this business be open?

I've been to lowe's and it seems very congested.

How do we change that?

In essence it's hot spots or areas of concern.

So what we do just to let folks know, is when those questions come in we have a primary point of contact who takes ownership through the police department at city hall.

He works with our licensing department on license.

He works with our city attorney on how to obtain the information that's needed.

And then it comes down to working to get information to the respective either business and/or police department where they can go navigate a hotspot.

Again, i'll let chief jernigan talk more about that but we continue to be very successful and education.

It's not necessarily policing.

It's simply sharing the information that helps get to the right answer.

I also talked with our county commissioner in madison for district 2, steve hair away.

While steve's office is open, the number one question he gets is the licensed facility where he is and the courthouse is closed.

We're creatures of habit.

We're used to going to those facilities for a license renewed for a tag or driver's license.

The good news for folks is they are set up for success by doing it via online registration.

You can go to madisoncountyal.gov and then go to the license department.

So those of us who are so used to just going and to a window we have to take a little bit of different approach but it easily can be done.

Again, madisonal.gov and you go to the license department.

And then i also talked with eric terrell, the acting superintendent with our madison city schools.

I know i speak on behalf of eric and along with huntsville schools and madison county schools.

Starting monday they're ready for distance learning.

They're ready for taking control again and getting these kids back to learning.

And i guess the one thing that i would say in talking with eric is, they feel like they are prepared.

But they know they're not 100% prepared.

There's going to be a couple of different instances over the course of the first two or three or four days where they need information to help them continue to get to the perfect answer.

So i guess i'm asking for patience when it comes to that because i can give you the example in city hall when this whole situation first happened, one of our departments brainstormed on the very first night and came up with about 15 questions.

That we didn't have any answers for.

And we asked them for the patience as we continued to work through this to get thenesses as they came up and be prepared for each and respective situation.

It worked very well that way.

I know we're so proud and we're in such good shape up in this community when it comes to our schooling, have patience and i know we'll get through this and work together with our school systems. one of the areas of concern that i continue to hear is in essence the sc scams that are out there.

There's people trying to take advantage of this covid-19 situation.

I want to remind people that they can use the better business bureau.

They were up here last week talking about how they can help you figure out if it's a scam or if it's something that's real.

Again, their number is 256-533-1640.

The better business bureau can help you understand scams that are out there and situations that you need to be aware.

And then i'll end by talking again about the success we have.

You guy, you think about it.

We started this week.

We have to be vigilant through the next 14 days.

We're down to the next 10 days.

You know, we've been so successful sharing information and doing many of the right things, but there's a fatigue that sets in and mayor battle talked about it yesterday.

We have to continue to stay on this.

We can't let up.

I know we won't.

So a couple of things.

First and foremost, if you're high risk, please continue to stay inside.

You don't have to get out.

There's people that will help you with what you need.

And if you don't have to get out, stay at home.

Guys, we talk about it all the time in city government, especially when we're talking about budgets.

Is it a want or is it a need?

Let's continue to focus over the next ten days on needs and not wants.

You know, we talk about some of these businesses that are out there right now that is a lot of people there and we talked over the last couple days of one cart, one person.

Which i guess would be reverse, one person with one cart.

You know, let's keep doing that.

I can tell you from a personal time, thursday was the first time i went to any business this week for the necessities that we needed.

And my first instinct was to grab my son who is home from college because i wanted to bond with him.

And my next thought was, that's not the right thing to do.

We made a list.

I went.

I can tell you at one point i had to take a picture of an item and say "is this it"?

We can do this but that's going to continue to make a difference, one person, one cart and a need, not a want.

I also will end by saying let's take ownership of our own house.

Everybody right now is looking around on there has to be a villain in this.

We need someone who we can point to.

It's not a democrat or republican.

It's a virus.

That's the villain.

The way you beat the villain is taking personal ownership for you and your family.

I know we'll continue to do that.

Gravitate towards the happy.

So many of you guys out there are sheltered in place right now in your homes doing what you're supposed to be doing.

And you're watching the news 24/7.

No offense to these guys out here.

Quit.

Find something that makes you happy.

Read, games, puzzles, a walk independently.

I've seen more people fishing than i've ever seen in my life.

Keep doing those things and let's gravitate towards the happy.

We will make it through these next ten days.

And i want to remind everybody, think about our community a month ago.

It was a rocket ship that we were holding on to.

I know so many of you guys love our community.

Let's remember that.

Let's have the patience to get through this together.

And in the end, we're going to be better off working together and building the relationships that help us navigate this situation.

That's all i have, jeff.

Thank you.

>> jeff birdwell: thank you, mayor finley.

Now we'll go to police chief david jernigan from the city of madison.

>> mr. jernigan: thank you, jeff.

And i appreciate you allowing us the opportunity to be represented here at this media event.

Today i'm not only representing the police department for the city of madison, also i'm representing sheriff kevin turner, madison county sheriff, huntsville police chief mark mcmurray as well.

I'm in constant contact by text and e-mail and telephone call with these two agencies, and in addition to the limestone county sheriff's office because a fair part of the my jurisdiction on the west side of this city is connected to limestone county.

And we've got an open line of communication.

We're exchanging information and ideas and we're asking each other how our supplies are, if anybody needs anything.

And that's a real good things for us to be able to do in a community like this in knot north alabama.

We are following cdc guidelines.

We continue to do this.

What's interesting is the cdc has guidelines that are segregated for law enforcement.

We take a look at those.

We put them into a document that allows us to do best practices.

And most importantly, we get that out to our people on the front lines.

And we're going to continue to do that.

We've also joined up with madison fire and rescue.

With that protocol.

When we go to a call for service, we try to conduct business outside if we can.

But we ask the questions when we go up for a call for service, we want to know, is anybody being isolated for covid-19?

Is anybody sick inside?

Anybody have cold or flu symptoms?

We try to get that established before we go in to a residence, try to conduct the business outside if we can.

We are concerned about contamination or employees are able to have the ppe to be able to decontaminate and also dispose of anything that might be a contagion on it.

Specifically, in the backseat of a patrol car, if we have transported anybody, we want to make sure we clean that up.

And more importantly, that when you get home, that you don't carry anything that may be a contagion into the house for your family.

We are engaged daily with the emergency management agency.

I keep my mayor informed.

Communicate on social media.

We have a number of different platforms we try to get information out.

The most important thing that we talked about this week was social distancing.

And we actually had a little psa we put out that shows what's call and what's not cool with regard to social distancing.

As an example, we on a routine patrol found a handful of -- about 20 college kids playing tag football on one of the school football fields.

We had to go up and we had to talk to them.

And tell them the gravity of the situation of being together.

And one of the comments was, well, it's just the flu.

It's not just the flu.

It's a very serious contagious illness.

A lot of what we're doing is educating the public, educating those in the businesses that have questions, concerning whether they should or should not be open.

We are doing novel things in law enforcement.

We're no longer doing traditional roll call.

We're doing roll call outside using the six feet separation distance.

We're doing virtual roll call on some of the applications for electronics, the millennials like that because it's a good way to be able to connect with their supervisors.

We suspended training except online training.

We have prioritized calls for service.

We have somebody that takes calls over the phone.

If you have a bicycle that's stolen, we're not going the send an officer to that call.

We're going to take that call by telephone, give you an event number, case number, let you follow up with insurance, then a detective will be able to reach out to you later.

Our detectives are working away from the office.

They're working with their laptop, working at home, coming in, getting case assignments daily and going back and working out of their cars.

Also our lobby has been closed for what i would call routine business.

Things like fingerprinting for background checks, alarm registration, pet registration.

If you have a walk-in complaint we have a sign that directs you to a red phone that hangs on the wall.

You're going of get in touch with our dispatch.

We'll have an officer call you and take a report.

Minor motor vehicle accidents, without injury, obstruction on the road, we're encouraging that our dispatch allow the drivers to exchange information, especially on private property accidents.

And be able to spare an officer from having to go make contact with the public.

Now, we're out there.

Make no mistake about the fact that we are patrolling.

What has helped us tremendously is to have additional school resource officers helping us on each shift to be able to extend our capability of being out in the city.

So we're out there.

And if you need us we want you to call us.

Certainly if it's an emergency.

911.

If it's not an emergency, we have a 24-hour seven day a week non-emergency number, 77 -- cor 722-7190.

I wanted to speak a little bit about what sheriff turner had mentioned to me.

He said that the jail population is down about 20% op one what it normally would be.

And he wanted to make sure that i talked about the cooperation that we're getting from the judiciary, the judges to be able to help us be able to get people out of jail on non-violent crimes.

Those are a danger to community, those are a flight risk, or danger to themselves, are going to remain in jail.

Also, that when within inmate is brought into jail, all three agencies are masking.

The inmate after they've been handcuffed.

That's protection for the officer, also protection for the jail when they go in to intake.

Their temperatures are taken first initially and then they're placed in segregation and 48 hours later their temperature is taken a second time.

If those end up being good numbers they will release them to general population.

We have had a couple of contacts with businesses in the city of madison on what is essential and a non-essential business.

One of the things that i was able to find online was this particular brochure.

It is real easy.

Red means you've got to stay closed.

Green means you can open.

What we've done is gone out to a couple of our businesses and taken this along with the governor's order.

And really it's been an education to talk to the business owners.

A lot of them were conflicted on what category they fell in.

Maybe they sold some stuff that was certainly permissible to be open but maybe the majority of their goods that they sold did not.

In fact, one particular business thought that they might fall under their particular category in the state next door to us.

And we said, no, you have -- you have to be compliant to what the alabama order states, not what another state issues.

That was just a little bit of a misunderstanding.

So we haven't had to shut any business down.

I don't think huntsville has either.

It's basically a conversation to educate our shop owners who are very, very important to this economy.

Most of them are doing curbside service.

They're being able to fill orders by the internet and so in essence they're able to reach out and touch their customers but in a different way that we're not used to.

I just wanted to mention real quickly on some crime numbers to kind of put things in perspective.

For us in madison, we've seen a 14% decrease in crime reported during the same time last year.

The most significant change is a 48% reduction in property crimes.

Overall, arrests are down about 52% for the same time last year.

Now, we still have crime in madison.

Lately we've had a lot of car break-ins.

I really, really highly suggest that you leave nothing of value in your car and you lock your doors.

That will help us tremendously.

A lot of the thieves are out on the street are testing the door handles.

If they're open, they will get in the car.

If there's a key fob, they'll drive your car way way.

They're looking for kreds or money.

They very rarely ever smash windows.

But even in a national emergency, that we're involved in right now, we do have thieves out there running the neighborhood.

So please leave nothing of value in your vehicle including weapons.

We've had a weapon stolen out of a car in the city this week already.

And you don't want a gun out on the street.

There's all sorts of problems that can be caused from that.

So what we emphasize is do a kw 9:00 check.

It's routine.

It can be really any time of the night, but before you retire, make a last bit security check of your residence.

Make sure your doors in your vehicles are locked, windows are up, everything is out of the car of value.

Make sure your garage door is closed.

If you leave a garage door open in madison after midnight we're going to knock on your door because we want to make sure you're safe.

Those are things you can help us with is to keep your family safe.

That's all i have, jeff.

>> jeff birdwell: thank you, chief jernigan.

All right.

Thank you for watching.

We will be back here again tomorrow at noon for another daily briefing.

Until then, critical updates will be posted to the city of huntsville's covid 19 web page as well as the website of our other partners here today.

Remember, stay safe, stay separate, and remember to sanitize.

At this point we will take a few questions.

Again, as you come to the microphone, please identify yourself and who you are affiliated with.

Also we will allow one question and a follow up.

And i do have one additional request, in the effort to speed things up.

Just note that we do have three microphones here.

So if you know you have a question, if you can go ahead and go to the different podiums, and then when you get finished you can have a seat and the next one can come up.

So we just want to make sure that we also still maintain that six feet social distancing.

>> my name is kate smith, i'm a reporter with 48 news.

My question is for dr. landers.

Yesterday there were comments made that there might be the numbers in madison county were flattening.

Do you believe that or are you seeing that or do you think that's because some of our test sites were closed this week because of the supplies?

>> dr. landers: thank you for that question.

You know, i think that it is difficult to predict at the moment what this outcome is going to be here.

But rather to look at it from the standpoint that huntsville/madison county has been doing quite a bit of testing and actually the numbers of tests are not completely reflected in terms of negativity on our data because some commercial labs do not report their negatives to the alabama department of public health.

Where we get the positives.

We're confident in getting the positive bus we may not get all the negatives.

This has actually been a very widely tested community.

Huntsville/madison has at this time, again, the numbers that we have in madison, and we do have one death that is confirmed.

We do know that we'll have additional deaths.

This is going to happen.

This is a deadly virus.

So i think that it is too early for us to predict.

What i will say in follow up to that is to have the best impact on this we must do what we have already been doing.

And that is to continue to practice the social distancing.

Just stay at home unless you need to go out.

We have people such as our law enforcement, our firefighter, our first responders, our doctors, our nurses, community leaders that have to be out.

But the more we stay at home we reduce the risk of spread of the virus.

Thank you.

>> and then just my follow-up question is that we spoke to some companies who say that they are getting price gouged for like a swab that would normally cost them a dollar, companies are charging them $20.

Are y'all seeing that?

And what are those conversations with companies?

>> dr. landers: i would have to defer that to the attorney general's office.

I do know that there is a lot of discussion there as well as local legal counsels for cities and counties.

What i can say is with the alabama department of public health, what we are trying to secure as ongoing work with our emas is to continue to look at the pricing that we have available and report any concerns that we have related to that.

And the mayor may have more follow up on that.

Thank you.

>> thanks.

>> i'm brian lawson with whnt.

I apologize.

This is for dr. landers.

I'm having a little bit of trouble hearing you.

That's mostly you, i think.

I may not ask a coherent follow up because i'm not hearing you especially well.

I asked this the other day and got good answers from mr. birdwell and mayor finley about calls an e-mails we continue to get even as recently as this morning from workers concerned about their workplaces, the conditions they are working within.

My impression is these are generally construction businesses, manufacturing facilities, production facilities.

Essentially they're saying either they're not able to keep within the distancing that we described over and over again or they're not in a sanitary situation.

What they keep asking is, what are we to do then?

Who do we call?

How can they do this to us?

And the it seems to be a number of the calls and messages that we've gotten, they are afraid to not show up to work because they will be fired and they won't have unemployment at that point, versus trying to stay safe and healthy in this environment.

I wondered, a, what you would tell those folk, and, b, what should they do?

>> dr. landers: brian, thank you.

That is a complex question and one that we all continue to work with as we look at businesses that have to remain open, businesses that fall in that guidance.

Cdc has extensive documents related to businesses as well as osha documents related to businesses in this time.

And what i would encourage employees to do as well as employers and we have gotten a lot of requests from employers for additional information, and we have provided that through the alabama department of public health.

But at this time, with employees, i would recommend that obviously they continue to review the policies of their business to work with their business, but if they see an unsafe situation or unsafe environment, again, if they cannot get satisfaction in working with their employer, then they need to report that.

Obviously the mechanism now has been to report to law enforcement, and as you heard chief mention, they're a very, very busy group at the moment.

Sometimes it just takes education.

Again -- and clarification.

Again, a lot of businesses have reached out to us to educate and to clarify, even related to the use of appropriate sanitization products.

But we do recognize that there will be questions and there will be issues.

And this is where we work together.

If the employee doesn't feel that they are get that appropriate satisfaction in talking to their employer, to contact, first of all, they can certainly e-mail the health department and we will try to respond with some educational materials.

But also if necessary, to contact law enforcement.

And we're continuing to address this as an educational situation.

Thank you.

>> jeff birdwell: let me add additional information to that.

This is locally, being madison county, kind of the process that we've come up with is, we don't want you notifying law enforcement, please forward all that to our office at ema and we will determine which jurisdiction is responsible for that.

And we will forward that to the right agency.

And just like with a lot of these businesses, the focus is going to be to identify, notify, and educate.

That's really probably the biggest problem is just a lot of people are not familiar and don't know exactly what they're supposed to do.

>> thank you.

Just one quick follow up.

It goes to a point the chief made a minute ago.

Can you talk about the stakes involved right now with the kinds of questions that we're talking about relative to behavior in a neighborhood or behavior in a workplace?

What's at stake here, do you think, for those worker, for these communities, these families, these workers are coming home to.

Why is this practice so important right now, do you think?

>> dr. landers: well, for everyone.

It doesn't -- we don't need to specifically categorize.

For every person right now the measures in terms of sanitization, in terms of keeping a safe physical separation.

Some people don't understand what social distancing is so we've broken it down some or our website, physical separation is a good way to understand that.

Really this is everyone's need and everyone's responsibility.

And i actually speak to this in terms of what the chief was talking about and talking to health care workers about when they finished their shift and going home to their families.

And i know i've mentioned before my daughter is a doctor.

And i'm health care provider myself and talking about just measures that you take before you go inside your home if you've been wearing a scrub suit, working all day in a hospital setting, you can have a designated place to change your clothes and shower and, again, take extra measures up.

Although we still know the transmission is more person to person.

But we can take that extra measure.

Again, as the chief has mentioned, some of the things he's talked to his officers about.

I think it's extremely important.

As jeff mentioned, i'm glad he clarified what is being done here in huntsville/madison.

It's very important that, first of all, we work together.

And again, the motivation of the vast majority of people that i've worked with in this is just to understand what they needed to do.

And once people understood the guidance that was before them, then they were making changes in order to meet that guidance.

And what's at stake is that this is the way we have to treat this virus.

I'm a doctor.

I like to have a way to treat things.

And the way i have to treat this virus now is the sanitization measures and the social distancing m measures.

That's what i'm prescribing for the citizens of alabama.

Thank you.

>> y thank you.

>> sydney martin with channel 31.

This is for dr. landers.

Can you talk about what the difference between these masks are over here and n 95.

We see the regular masks.

We don't really know what those are.

>> dr. landers: and sydney, thank you.

I'll try not to -- sometimes i get a bit technical on these kinds of issues.

An n 95 mask is a mask that is really described as a particulate mask, if you will, or a mask that fillers out particles.

So it has a different material and a tighter fit to the face in order to prevent -- well, for example, what we're talking about here.

Respiratory droplets.

To prevent those droplets from penetrating the mask and going into the nose and mouth of the health care worker that's wearing those.

As you know an n95 has to be fitted properly, otherwise it does not work.

Then you talk about a surgical mask.

And again, many people are familiar with those.

Again, if you're going into surgery, if you going into a operating room, as chief mentioned, that's the mask that we recommend that people use for persons that are non-health care workers because while a surgical mask has different material, it will work quite well in preventing those persons that have droplets being expelled either through cough, sneeze, or close contact.

It will prevent those droplets from being disbursed out into the atmosphere.

I'm a tuberculosis control doctor.

And we use n95s to protect our tb control workers.

We also use surgical masks to place on our patients.

Again, because tb is a respiratory droplet illness.

So that's the difference in the two masks.

N95 is not a comfortable mask to wear for people that are not involved in health care, that have not been properly fitted for that mask.

A surgical mask is more appropriate for reduction in transmission of droplets from the actual patient.

Thank you.

>> and then to follow up on that.

There's been a lot of talk about the possibility in the near future of everyone being recommended to wear masks.

If that comes as a recommendation, how do you know that you're getting the right one?

They're very hard to come by right now to find and to order.

>> dr. landers: i'm glad you asked that question because as a physician myself, i cannot stress enough that people who are not fitted for an n95 and don't have a reason to be wearing one should not be wearing one.

Same thing with surgical masks.

Really surgical masks need to be reserved for situations as the emergency response agency, emergency ems services to put on the patients or the hospitals or the doctors' offices.

Again, same thing with law enforcement, making sure that those are available for the patients.

Should this come about, and again, there is <!0> discussion and there has been discussion, should this come about, i do expect that the information that's being provided related to the use of cotton masks, again, sewn masks, will be one of the items that is considered for the general public, should this come act.

About.again, there has not been guidance from the cdc related to that.

So masks now continue need to be reserved for the health care workers and responders and for patients who need to have those masks utilized.

Thank you.

>> jeff birdwell: at this point we'll conclude this press conference.

Thank you for coming.

>>> all right.

Well, there's another briefing, again from leaders from madison county, also law enforcement as well as the medical community as well.

Some highlights to recap today.

Again, from dr. karen landers who kicked this thing off, she's saying, look, we are all impacted by coronavirus and, in fact, it's including one of their own there.

The alabama department of public health.

Everybody is impacted about this.

But a couple of quick major points that she did make.

She says the department of public health refined its data.

And some new statistics are coming in including hospital rates.

She gave us preliminary numbers, marie.

She said 15% preliminary rate right now of coronavirus in hospitals across this state, which she categorized, if i heard it correctly, as normal given infectious diseases.

Shes will says they'll continue to update the state dashboard.

She also says and asks everyone, reiterated this at the end, of that news briefing, continue to follow the state health directives.

They may change.

They've changed some two or three times since the beginning of this.

The bottom line of this is, as we're heading to this beautiful weekend, get outside but practice social distancing again.

We're going to get through this.

You heard mayor finley talking as well about this fatigue and you and i, marie, discussed this as well over the last few weeks.

There's a lot of information going on out there.

Mental fatigue kicks in.

So do yourself a favor and try to find something to lift your spirits and i'll leave you with this before i send it back to you, mayor finley saying and i love this quote, he says, gravitate towards the happy.

Some great advice this friday afternoon.

>> marie waxel: find something that makes you happy.

Absolutely.

All three of them, chief jernigan, dr. landers and mayor finley fight the fatigue.

That's the big message as we head into that beautiful weekend.

Right now the police department, all police departments and sheriff's department in madison county city office shufses are working on educating the community, educating those businesses, so they know they're not a hotspot, they say that's what their number one focus is.

To make sure people understand the order that is released at the state level.

Again, a lot of changes.

A lot of fatigue out there.

But that's the one message that we want to drive home to you this afternoon.

Fight that fatigue.

Know that we will get through it together.

And, yes, we are all in it together.

We have much more on the coronavirus and the numbers and updates on how it's impacting our community for you right now on waaytv.com, waay 31 news app.

You can find the latest for you right there the your fingertips 24/7 and we'll have the most update-to-date information for you coming up at